Video: 2008 Scion xB

So we're gonna go over some of the features that have remained the same and why it remains kind of a practical car. One of the things that stayed the same, is the engine. It's 158 horsepower, four cylinder. We have the version with a five speed manual transmission and it makes it a lot more fun to drive. I've driven the automatic and it's not bad. It's just, doesn't really wow you. In either case, it moves away from the spotlights very well and with the manual transmission, it's particularly good on the highway. It's rated at 22 miles per gallon in the city, 28 miles per gallon on the highway. Now, one of the nice things about the xB, is it's a hatchback. It uses a traditional swing up rear, as opposed to one of the opening doors things. I just think it's more practical. One thing to keep in mind, it does open a little low. If you're on the taller side, that's not that big of a deal. The cargo area is generous. I mean, you've got plenty of room here for, obviously a normal sized duffle bag. We also tested it, with a couple of golf bags and a couple of pieces of luggage. So there's a fair amount of room back here. If you need more room, it's a split folding rear seat, very easy to use. So all in all, it's really pretty practical. Now inside the xB, it's, kind of a mixed bag. You get good visibility to the front. There's a, kind of a blind spot to the rear. So that's something that you would wanna look at on a highway during a test drive, but the seats are comfortable. And I use this car a lot, as a carpool vehicle, and none of my passengers complained about a lack of space, so that's a good thing. Now, some things on the interior, weren't so great. All of my passengers, did not like the fact that they did not have a passenger arm rest here. This bend down here, is way too low to use. That really annoyed them. Also, there's not a lot of covered storage space. There's a lot of open areas here, but if you wanna leave something valuable out of sight, there's really only this very small center console. And then over here, in kind of a smallish glove box. For me as a driver, the thing that I really didn't like, is the Tachometer. It's very hard to see, very hard to read. And if you're using a manual transmission, it's almost useless. Now when the first Scion xB came out, it was kind of unusual, to see a lot of small boxy cars on the road now they're a lot more common, but the one thing that I think keeps XB competitive and one of the things I really like about it, is it just does a lot of things well. Again, we've been over the cargo area. There's a fair amount of room there. I use it as a carpool duty vehicle and again none of my passengers complained, except for about the arm rest and it was fine on the highway. So it's kind of nice, that they haven't changed a lot on it from 2008 to 2010, so that if you're looking at either a new one or a used one, you're basically looking at the same car. And I think that's a good thing. <v Narrator>For more car related news, go to cars.com or our blog, KickingTires.net.